Public Policy Forum Research

Over the years, the Forum has built a reputation as the region's premier source of data and analysis on K-12 education issues, with annual reports on the demographics, achievement and financing of public and private schools. More recently, we have expanded our portfolio to include early childhood education, with a multi-year research project on child care quality that has helped shape state policy in that area. In addition, we have initiated a two-year project on afterschool programming in Milwaukee.

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Publications

Throughout much of the nation, parents have a clear-cut choice of where to educate their children – in a public school, at taxpayer expense, or in a private school, at the family’s expense.
In Milwaukee and some other cities, however, that line is...

Over nearly three decades, the Public Policy Forum has collected and analyzed education data to report on the demographics, academic performance, and finances of public schools and districts in southeast Wisconsin. This 29th annual public...

Pull-out poster providing Southeastern Wisconsin school performance in an easily readable format. Performance of the K-12 school districts includes enrollment, district finances, student participation and student performance measures.

In December 2012, the Public Policy Forum released a comprehensive analysis of the Milwaukee Public Schools’ fiscal condition. The report – entitled Passing the Test, But Making the Grade? – was designed to explore the severity of MPS’...

In this report, a follow-up to our June 2013 report: Community-led Arts Education Models in the U.S.: Potential Lessons for Milwaukee, we use a case study approach to delve deeper into the underlying mechanics and structural factors of...

Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program (MPCP) includes 110 schools today, having experienced both exits and entrants from its roster of 111 schools in the past decade. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), fall 2013 voucher...